Some people have no talent for mothering. Others are actively, aggressively bad at it. Into the latter group falls Livia Soprano, mother to New Jersey mobster Tony. She grew up in financial poverty and made sure that each of her children was raised in emotional poverty. Paranoid and power-hungry, she attained old age unmellowed: when Tony decided that she could no longer live on her own, he attempted to move her to a nursing home (or, as Tony maintained, a "retirement community." In retaliation, Livia manipulates Uncle Junior to order a hit on her own son.
The hit didn't work out, but Tony was still worrying that Livia would sell him out to the Feds when she died, peacefully, of natural causes. (She might have gone on to work even further mischief if the actress who played her, Nancy Marchand, hadn't herself passed away, which resulted in Livia's being written out of season 3.) Interesting side note: Livia had two namesakes. One was the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus, a ruthless political schemer who was implicated in any number of politically motivated poisonings. The other was Sopranos creator David Chase's own mother, who was also named Livia.